


Gemini

by SpicaV



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Dominion War (Star Trek), Engineering, Episode: s03e16 Blood Fever, Episode: s06e25 The Haunting of Deck Twelve, Episode: s07e15 Lower Decks, F/M, General Angst, Grades, Post-Movie: Star Trek Generations (1994), Sibling Love, Starfleet Academy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:07:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24972058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicaV/pseuds/SpicaV
Summary: A study of twin brothers and their extremely disparate paths in Starfleet, the fate of the Enterprise-D and Voyager starships, and the reunion that shows how much has changed between them.
Comments: 14
Kudos: 40





	1. Two of Wands

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for mildly graphic injury description in chapter 1.

Two of Wands: _The way to success, focused on a goal, pointing efforts in one direction. Awareness of thought patterns, awareness and addressing of one’s self_. 

Their acceptance letters from Starfleet Academy arrived on the same afternoon, Taurik reading his in a punctual manner and Vorik lingering over the words “congratulations” and “accepted.” Taurik went to inform their parents of this news, the line of his spine straight, his stride graceful, like that of a salan-ta dancer. Vorik, who had paused with one arm in and one arm out of his robes, took a moment to shrug inside and smooth the fall of fabric. By the time he walked to the common room their mother, T’Sara, was caressing Taurik’s palms in maternal joy. Tybik, their father, was looking over the padd with its scroll of enrollment information, dates, times, lodging designations in the dormitory. 

“Mendocino House West,” Tybik read aloud, his Raalian accent turning the unfamiliar Terran words into a curl of water. He noticed Vorik standing on the balcony, one hesitant foot on the first step. “And you, my son? Were you also accepted?”

“Yes, Yatau’an,” he said, handing his father his own padd with the identical acceptance letter. He wondered if it had been composed twenty minutes after Taurik’s, just as his birth had been twenty minutes aft—no. _Acknowledge your anger, understand its origin, master it_ , he reminded himself. 

The origin: the word “also,” the sensation that no matter how much he and Taurik matured he would always be the son slightly out of step. The surprise twin, loved well but not looked for. Vorik threw shame into his effort at mastery when he saw Taurik looking at him with pride in his dark eyes, a subtle joy warm along their sibling-bond. It was the way Vorik wished he looked at himself, but the mirror of his brother would have to do. 

“I congratulate you, v’Sakai,” Vorik said, love softening his voice, which had a slight breathy quality prized among his family, whose ancient heraldry element had been Air.

“And I you,” Taurik said, coming to clasp his hand. “Congratulations, d’Sakai.”

They allowed themselves a private smile, safe to show in close quarters, for their parents had already turned to compose a message to the rest of the Clan and to the matriarch of their House. Proud sons of tradition, set to walk among the stars.

******

Four weeks later, goodbyes said to home, family, and planet, Taurik and Vorik stepped from the Starbase shuttle into the San Francisco terminal in California, North American States, Planet Earth. Taurik hunched further into his wool jacket, juniper green in a classic Vulcan cut that blended well with the current Terran fashions. Vorik wandered just behind, glad for his traditional brown robes. The marine layer clung to the peninsula and chilled the coastal air. His robes also kept some of the crowd at bay; as a city-raised man, crowds were no great hardship. However, this crowd was diverse, loud, and tested his telepathic shields in ways that he was unaccustomed. A small tension headache cupped the back of his head.

They approached a group of Cadets wishing welcome to the newest recruits. By the Dress pips on their collars they were second-year students. Six Humans, Three Betazoids, two Kelpians, and a single Bajoran man stood among the group, nodding, directing, answering questions. One of the Betazoid women smiled at the Vulcan men, her black irises only a few shades darker than their own.

“Welcome,” she said, voice melodious and deep. Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders and smelled faintly of gardenia flowers. “I am Cadet Betania. Do you have your admission letters?”

Taurik gave his padd first, for he had it at the ready. Of course. Vorik, distracted by Betania’s waterlike voice, took a moment to tug his from his travel bag. 

“Oh yes, Mendocino was my dormitory,” she said. Her voice sounded like a caress. “I have since moved to Muir House, but Mendicino had the best lounges. Skylights, a Vedek cascading fountain. Tell the cooks in the kitchen that Leya sent you; they will give you the most amazing vanilla-espresso chocolate cheesecake. I ate it so often the cooks named the dish after me. Room 307, Mister Taurik. You will be able to see the sea from your window. And yours?”

Vorik handed her his letter, snapped his hand behind his back when the pad of her thumb brushed his. Tried to ignore the crackle of sexual attraction. He was married, or nearly, if one counted the Human difference between engaged and fully wed: Valen, from Seraal; a herbalist and dietician; short black hair and blue-grey eyes, rare in a Vulcan. Pert mouth, a slight crookedness in her left eyebrow. He loved her as a bondmate might, though he did not know her well. However, this woman with her water-deep voice and sensual warmth in the black irises—Vorik cleared his mind the moment he remembered that Betania was an empath and likely sensed his attraction. He also realized that she had the good grace not to _acknowledge_ his attraction.

“Miwok House, room 406. South side of campus.” She handed Vorik his padd back with a glittering smile, her voice trembling with genuine amusement. “I think it has a view of the city. If you will walk down the right-side hall, gentlemen, the Academy staff will give you maps and check you into the campus systems. Welcome to the Academy.”

Vorik replaced the padd, noticed that Taurik held onto his, then took his own back out again. 

“She was symmetrical,” Taurik said, in a light tone that showed his good humor.

“She was. It is unfortunate that she did not have a personal biography for my dormitory building.” Vorik was calculating her waist-to-hip ratio and found it perfect. Meditated upon the shame that followed. Starfleet uniforms were form-fitting, whereas clothing on Vulcan tended toward the modest and severe. He tucked his belly in a bit as he walked, telling himself that keeping his core muscles engaged would help with posture. He glanced over his shoulder at the Betazoid woman, just swallowed by the crowd. He and Valen had spent some time together as they grew up, as most bondmates did. Learned one another’s areas of study and interests, spent time rowing on the Zhai Inlet during summer lulls. Lay together in a sheltered cove and played with one another with healthy sexual curiosity; Cadet Betania’s cool voice reminded him of his wife.

They fell into a queue that led to one of the registration tables, draped in blue and silver, the Starfleet seal prominent on the center of each station. A Mallanite Béa-woman, marked so by a braid of violet-tinted hair, welcomed new Cadets with a quavering voice. They were from a species with six genders and three sexes among each group. Their hair and demeanor marked them as fem-fem-masc-female, the second-most feminine of the species. Bipedal, broad-faced, their long-fingered hands quick as they tapped on padds and gave informational packets to the recruits. Their eyes were honey gold with elliptical pupils. 

“Welcome, I am Leeko. Please, Misters and…” They hesitated, looking back and forth from Taurik to Vorik. Their face flushed violet with confusion. “You are the same person?”

“We are t'dahsular s'ka-yu-mur,” Vorik faltered, biting the side of his tongue, as if this would focus his memory. Reached for the words that were not quite there. 

“Identical twins,” Taurik clarified, the wry twist in his voice admonishing Vorik for forgetting the Standard phrase. 

“ _Iden_ tical twins?!” Leeko grinned. “Ah, on my world we have no, breeat’keh-mas? We have no sister-brothers. One child a piece. To have the same child twice, it is like a dream. Ah, have your first meal on me.” She passed them two pre-paid credit chits for a restaurant called Finn MacCool’s Café and trilled with excitement, as if she had seen a Tarnelian firebird riding Halley’s comet. “I am still getting used to all the peoples of the Federation. My planet, my Mallan Three, maybe we will be inducted soon. The Federation considers. Starfleet was kind; I join their support staff and take classes on the side to prepare for my own entrance next year. Applied subspace communications, my field. Now, here is your and your maps of campus; this residence hall on the northwest side, this on the south. Classes begin, five days. Welcome to Starfleet, Misters Vorik-and-Taurik of Vulcan.”

The brothers thanked Leeko and shouldered their way through the crowd of milling first-year cadets. Vorik, for a brief moment, allowed himself to feel pleasure that Leeko had called them by his name first. 

The morning was even colder outdoors, mist from the sea obscuring the buildings from the first story on up, the famed Golden Gate and San Francisco peninsula entirely hidden. Vorik and Taurik were used to humidity, for the northern extent of the Voroth Sea lay close to home. Heat clung, sea birds cried, the smell of salt and tidal flats hung suspended in the air. Here, the only similarity was the presence of sea birds and salty winds; the gulls were white rather than scarlet and called with a curdling, glass-on-glass sound. The sea birds at Voroth called with cries that sounded like grief. One of the white gulls landed near Taurik’s feet, considered his slender frame, his foodless satchel, then flew away with a lift of its bladelike gray wings. 

“Shall we find ‘Finn MacCool’s Café’ and have breakfast?” Taurik asked him, speaking slowly in Standard. He knew the language by heart, but the muscles of his throat and mouth still needed to work it over for complete mastery. Vorik, by contrast, struggled with vocabulary but pronounced Standard without a hint of any Vulcan accent at all.

“Yes. Then to the dormitories?”

“A sound plan.” Taurik walked without hesitation to a directional kiosk and pointed them southeast, crossing campus.

Vorik walked with a hitched stride, the result of a sprained ankle that he sustained as an adolescent. It ached with the change in air pressure between the shuttle and sea level. Glanced around to watch new recruits, experienced Cadets, knots of officers. An elderly groundskeeper knelt among tall grasses, hissing with Bay winds, and pulled weeds by hand. Grumbled to himself, reached for a garden spade. Somewhere in the headlands a foghorn moaned. Mist and fog caressed his face, lifted strands of his immaculate black hair. He could smell pine and wet grass, open sea. His ears caught the slap of faraway surf above the babble of the Starfleet campus. So different from fiery Vulcan, with its blazing dry summers inland and close, humid shores. He smiled inwardly, thinking that he already liked it here.

*****

He hated it here. There was no shame in this; one had to admit their failing before one could begin to move past it. Kaiidth. Vorik, flopped onto his bunk, lay on his belly and drew his pillow over his head. His new second-year roommate was Cir’da, the first of his kind in Starfleet. Sweet, affable, and also capable of spinning a cocoon like a moth. His spinnerets clicked at a rapid tempo whenever he made a new one. Promised: just for sleep, Voar-ick, you won’t otherwise know I am here. 

“My foot,” Vorik whispered to himself, trying out an idiom he had heard Cadet Jarloe use. Jarloe, a Space Station Brat, had a collection of idioms from eighteen different worlds and used them with great linguistic dexterity. Vorik blinked into the dark void, wondering if “my foot” meant the dismissive form of “yeah, right” or if he had gotten the idiom wrong again. The last time he had used it he had meant to say the affirmative “hell yeah,” in response to an invitation to a pizza-and-study party. 

Jarloe had recently taught him the phrase “also ran,” which seemed to fit his relationship with his brother; Taurik’s Academy grades hovered in the 95th percentile, while Vorik’s middled into the high 30s. 

Cir’da was clacking his spinnerets in his sleep. 

Vorik rolled out of bed and shrugged into his robes. Walked out into the dimly lit hall and glanced at the chronometer above the toilets: 03:28. 

He Thought a silent inquiry at his brother, but of course the response was a wordless mental shove that indicated that Taurik had been sound asleep. Admonishment trailed at the end of it, and Vorik sent silent apology. Their sibling-bond was not as strong as that of a married couple, but it was stronger than the parent-bond that T’Sara and Tybik had for either of them. Or either of them for their sisters. Perhaps this was because he and Taurik were natural clones of one another, identical in DNA. And yet, so different. Taurik, always a little more poised, a little more efficient, graceful, quick-minded. He did not linger and puzzle over new information; he absorbed it like rain on dry sand. 

Classes took up much of their time. He saw Torik only briefly, passing across campus or during their single shared course, “Emergency Xenolinguistics Translation During Field Assignments,” set in the Nyota Uhura Lecture Hall. Taurik sat in the exact middle of the hall, flanked on either side by his friends, Cadets Lavelle and Qaasim. Vorik, feeling that his brother chose this seat so that he would be difficult to get to, sat slumped—for a Vulcan—in the front row with Cadets Vasquez, M’beni, and Jarloe. Straight back touching the seat rest, knees open, hands limp on his thighs. Loneliness nibbled at the edges of his concentration in spite of his growing circle of friends. He was firmly in the “culture shock” phase of life on another planet so different from his own. He had thought that his three holiday trips to Earth as a child and a young man had sufficiently prepared him, but he found this was in error. Lingering at Arches National Park or New Hong Kong were poor substitutes for actually living on Earth; the planet was as diverse as Vulcan in culture and language.

His reflection now wavered in the dark glass as he left the dormitory halls. He glanced across the Golden Gate straight to San Francisco, a city which he sometimes explored on weekends with Taurik. The seven-day stretch of days and twelve months still confounded him; this was November, chilly, wet, and firmly in the northern hemisphere’s late autumn.

The darkness of the morning swallowed him when he stepped outdoors, and he looked across the black Bay waters, shimmering with lights from the city. The restored lighthouse at Alcatraz flung twin beams of blue light across the darkness. He enjoyed going to the island under the guise of observing indiginous fauna; the place was a nature preserve, nesting grounds for all manner of gulls, finches, and even a few cormorants. The ancient prison had crumbled to a shell after the tumultuous wars of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, and nature had reclaimed what Humans had built. 

The island reminded him a bit of Raal. Cooler, yes, but the ruins, the commemorative stone statues of Native Americans and famous San Franciscans, and the squalling of birds felt like home. 

He walked until sleep began to find him. Several students were stirring for early, off-world classes when he walked upstairs to his cobwebbed dorm room. Vorik heard Cadet Colket muttering to herself about the shuttle to Titan, damn atmospheric thrusters, damn high winds, damn shuttlecraft handled like a goddamn bathtub, sand gets everywhere.

Vorik sank into sleep, wishing that he were aboard a shuttle, headed anywhere but home.

*****

“Get the plasma pressure up, Cadet!” Professor Prasnath strolled the catwalk above with his hands behind his back, looking stately and knowledgeable and almost Vulcan. “Vorik! You will have a prolapse of the generation field if you do not stabilize the pressure.”

Vorik grabbed the flux stabilizer and knocked his d-chamber calipers off of the bench in the process. It skittered too far away to reach. Cadet Frasier, standing on the observation platform, discreetly kicked it back to him when Prasnath’s back was turned. The practice warp matrix glowed and spat plasma shocks just as the alarm system began to blare. The volume seemed to catch in his teeth. 

Vorik’s hands flew as the pressure sank. 

“Bath’paik,” he hissed at the warp chamber, getting the pressure to rise just a bit before it sank almost to zero, flared again. “Ar’kada!”

The pressure flared and died, electric shock striking his wrist. Vorik pulled back and caught his right palm on the bottom track of the plasma field door. Skin ripped and blood welled, flowing green in the lines of his skin.

“Pressure zero! You have killed everyone in Engineering and half of the people on deck 12. Please stand with your classmates, Cadet.” 

Vorik stood, clenching his bleeding hand behind his back and returning to stand beside Frasier. She glanced down at the blood already starting to drip from his knuckles. He turned his palm upward, hoping to catch it, willing his blood to clot.

“What did we learn here?” Prasnath descended the stairs and stood before the warp core, the pulsing lights gone dark. 

“I should have attempted to raise the plasma pressure before attempting integration,” Vorik recited by rote. “However, sir, if I had an intermix capacity b-field integrator—”

“This is not an advanced class, Vorik, it is only second-year Intermix Chamber Engineering. You need to learn the basics before learning to experiment with tools and theory. And the list of basics is long.” Prasnath lifted his silvered eyebrows and began to lecture the class about learning rules by heart so that they may later unlearn them if needed. 

Vorik felt blood pattering down on his boot heels. Cadet Vasquez, just at his periphery, glanced back and down.

“...to repair the warp drive system; we as Starfleet engineering officers must learn _in order_ to understand basic starship procedure, Mr. Vorik, report to the infirmary. You are getting blood everywhere.” 

“Yes, sir.” Vorik stepped forward to retrieve the tools he had dropped but was waved on by Prasnath, who gave him a kind smile as he passed. 

Vasquez trotted to catch up with him as he crossed the sunny quad. Vorik raised his arm up so that his hand was above his heart and applied pressure at the appropriate places to stop the bleeding. He was yet too flustered to attempt the deeper Disciplines that would allow him to stop it on his own. His palm looked as if it had a mouth.

“You okay?” Vasquez matched his stride. 

“It is only a minor injury, Cadet,” he said, wishing to be alone. Angry, but not at Vasquez. Angry at himself: his slipping grades, his faltering vocabulary, his ability to make only superficial friendships with anyone who was not Taurik.

“I’ll still walk with you. I need to pick up a ‘script.” Her sun-bronzed skin and high cheekbones caught light and shadow. Short-cropped hair; quick, dark eyes. Gold studs glittered in her ears. “I know you probably want to be alone with your wounded pride, but that looks really gnarly, Vorik. Wouldn’t want you to faint from blood loss. You might fall into the petunias.”

Vorik allowed a small, wry smile to lighten his mouth.

“Dios mio,” She grinned. “You _can_ smile.”

“When the situation warrants,” Vorik said, resuming his normal placid expression. Some called it arrogant. Vasquez called it “resting bitch face,” a trait she seemed to share. 

“Want me to wait while you get stitched up?”

“Stitched?”

“An old term I learned in my Applied Field Medicine class. You can still stitch wounds shut in an emergency, but give me a derm-knit any day of the week.”

“Barbaric.” He hesitated, mounting the steps to the infirmary. Several people turned to look at him. Blood soaked his sleeve, and he was glad that the cadet uniform was dark. He may be able to salvage it. “You may stay with me, if it pleases you. You would be welcome.”

“I’ll stay, then.”

Vorik rejoined her after the doctor released him. Local antibiotic in his palm and a tetanus shot in his neck. The welt of scar on his palm throbbed, but it was not unmanageable pain. Vasquez marveled at it and held his hand, turned it into the sunlight.

“You should have seen my calf when I tore it surfing. Off Point St. George. Best spot in NorCal, by my reckoning.” 

“You surf?”

“Since I was a little girl in pigtails,” Vasquez let his hand fall gently, lowering it and releasing only when it fell near his hip. She smelled of gardenia flowers, sweet and clean. Vorik inhaled deeply, thinking of spring on the western coast of Xir’tan. He and Taurik exploring the coves as children on holiday, picking up sea glass and brightly colored pebbles on a cobblestone beach. “You ever been?”

“No. The tides on Vulcan can be prohibitive to such water sports, though many try. However, I have tried river rafting, both at home and up on the North Fork of the American River. Jarloe and I are planning a trip to raft on the Trinity, if you are interested.”

“Definitely.” 

They walked in comfortable silence to Muir, where they both lived. Made plans to meet at the warp core simulator later that evening after Vorik had changed and given his hand time to rest as the doctor prescribed. He looked forward to the study session with more good humor than he would admit and stepped fresh from the shower with the towel about his waist and water drops clinging to his shoulders. Let them evaporate from his skin. 

His mid-semester rankings waited in his inbox. Twenty-two percent.

  
  


*****

Vorik sat in the Lir Danah Engineering Library, hands steepled in front of his mouth as he stared at a vertical intermix schematic of the _Enterprise-D_. Though the design was not classified, enough modifications had been done by Chief Engineer LaForge that the enhancers for internal plasma pressures were considered unorthodox; as a result, the _Enterprise_ ’s warp efficiency had needled off of the charts. Vorik cast a glance at his most recent ranking in the scroll window of his portable terminal. His final year at the Academy and he had fallen to the 6th percentile. A commission to Starfleet’s flagship was off of the table. Shame radiated off of him, and instead of finding solace in the Disciplines he just wanted to wallow in it for a while.

A warm hand fell on his shoulder and he put his own up, caressing his brother’s fingers. Knew that Taurik could see his ranking. Didn’t care. He closed his eyes, tired of the bright lights over the library stacks.

“D’Sakai,” Taurik said, sitting down beside him, closing the terminal. Second brother, a nickname they had made the moment they could count between one and two. 

They sat in silence for a long while, the sky darkening toward a rainy spring night. When they had first arrived on Earth the frequent fog, drizzle, and rain had delighted them and they went for walks in it often. Now they both felt weary of it. 

Vorik reminded himself that Starfleet accepted only the top 20 percent of applicants; his instructors had told him that grade rankings were not the only rubric by which Starfleet Officers were judged. Professor Prasnath had said that Vorik was a natural engineer, a jack-of-all-trades kind of tinkerer that was invaluable on starships. The kind of officer who learned by experience rather than book and schematic.

Silent inquiry touched him along the sibling-bond, and he opened his eyes to glance at Taurik. His brother was looking out the rain-streaked window. Low clouds rolled in over the city, skyscrapers lost in the belly of the storm. Averting the eyes was a common Vulcan courtesy when discussing difficult subjects. Vorik remembered his father giving them the pon farr talk as children while addressing a row of potted succulents in the common room. This allowed for slips of emotional response to go unwitnessed. 

He wanted now for Taurik to look at him, the compassion he felt through their link to be turned on him in full. But Taurik continued to stare out at the silky night, his expression soft but stoic. He could rest easy; his final ranking was the 97th percentile. His commission to the _Enterprise-D_ had come through that morning. Vorik had been assigned to the _USS Independence_ for further training.

“When do you ship out?” Vorik asked, closing his eyes again.  
  
“Three days,” Taurik shifted in his chair as a wave of sadness passed between them. This would be the first time they would be separated for more than a few weeks; Taurik’s assignment to the _Enterprise-D_ would extend for two years at the least. Vorik’s assignment was temporary and would keep him as a Midshipman for another semester. Taurik was already an Ensign. 

“Congratulations,” Vorik said. It was unnecessary but he felt it needed to be said. His time among diverse Federation species had affected his social habits in ways more pronounced than that of his brother’s.

“Nemaiyo.” Thank you. 

Words and silence had once flowed so easily between then, but now Vorik felt as if he were choking on things he needed to say while unwilling to break the silence. He allowed himself to feel relief when Taurik stood and asked Vorik to come with him.

They borrowed a ground car and drove north on Highway 1, the road twisting and dipping, the windows down to allow the soft May twilight in. The night smelled of rain, salt, eucalyptus. Vorik felt the silence between them settle into something more comfortable, and neither young man spoke when Taurik parked the car at the Muir Woods trailhead.

The redwood groves rose overhead, sighing with rain and ocean air currents that exhaled for thousands of kilometers across open skies. The duff of needle fronds sank beneath their boots. Shadows, deep as ink, pooled beneath the trees and a shallow creek gurgled unseen in the hollows. Though Muir Woods lay close to the Academy and San Francisco they felt as far removed as the moons of Tiris IV. A spotted owl called to its mate, the cry both haughty and haunting. They could not see the stars above the clouds and old-growth canopy, but knowing they were there was enough. 

“I am proud of you,” Taurik said at random as they passed through Cathedral Grove. Vorik almost flinched.

“I am practically failing,” he said. Throat tight. He didn’t bother to try for mastery.

“Professor Qilik-ah said that grades are not the only rubric—”

“By which officers are judged. I know. Prasnath told me the same thing.” Vorik sighed and leaned up against one of the towering trees. “‘Jack of all trades, master of none’ is not precisely a compliment.” 

Taurik was silent, his hands folded behind his back and the picture of poise. 

_He can afford to be charitable,_ Vorik thought, hating himself for it. Again, his anger was internal, not directed at his brother.

“What of the dilithium crystal matrix protocols that you are drafting at present? They seem promising.” 

Vorik felt a surge of pride in spite of his misery. That was one subject on which he seemed to be on firm footing. Damn subspace inhibitors and navigational plasma arrays anyway. “I already submitted my thesis to Captain Xiiril. She asked for a draft of the initial application and may allow me to experiment with the matrix.”

Taurik smiled, his body language relaxing by degrees. “You always had a talent for hands-on work,” he said. “Pursue it, Vorik. Starfleet is not just a planet-bound campus and academic papers. One can become too specialized and struggle to find a niche. Most of the work we do will be done among the stars.”

Vorik looked up at the dark span of canopy. “I am Vuhlkansu. I should not be so poor a student.”

“ _We_ are Vuhlkansu, d’Sakai. We should or should not be a lot of things, but reality and ideology seldom fully align,” Taurik said. “You are a brilliant hands-on engineer, and I am proud of you. There. Another thing I should not say, because pride is illogical. Nevertheless, I said it.”

“I am proud of you, v’Sakai. The _Enterprise_ is the gold standard of Starfleet experience; Captain Picard and Chief Engineer LaForge are fortunate to have you.” Vorik said this honestly, envy made impossible by love.

“When do you report to the _Independence_?” 

“Five days. My assignment is six months. After that I may be able to transfer to the _Mae Jemison_ , _Voyager,_ or _Chafee,_ according to Xiiril.” 

“Then will you please ‘see me off,’ as Humans like to say?” 

“Yes. Perhaps in two years we can serve aboard the same vessel,” Vorik said. “I’ll probably be Ensign and you Commodore, judging by your rank percentile.”

“Then report to the ground car, Ensign, unless you want to continue our midnight walk.”

Vorik considered the two dark paths that led through Muir Woods, the one further into the groves and hills, the other back to the road and the Academy. Nodded north, further into the shadows. Taurik followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Vorik. Yet when I saw his and Taurik's graduating percentiles over at Memory Beta I knew I had to write this particular fic, right after I stopped laughing. Some people indeed do better in the field than in the classroom, and Vorik is one of these. 
> 
> Also, now I know why ST writers have a tendency to just write TECH for the technobabble sections of their first draft scripts.
> 
> Dedicated to my own sibling, who has taken a very different path from mine and whom I love greatly. LLAP


	2. Two of Swords

Two of Swords: _Calmness, agreement, and compromise, meditation and applying logic; becoming unbalanced, peace shattered, lack of clarity._

  
  


The engines screamed, coughed, rattled. Taurik barely heard Lieutenant Commander LaForge’s commands to evacuate Engineering; he was already helping Lieutenant Aisha Bilal out of the coolant-tight door on the second level. The sickening yaw of the _Enterprise_ pitched him sideways as she dipped and shuddered. 

“Coolant leak! Evacuate to the saucer section!” Red alert blared over LaForge’s voice as Taurik ducked into a Jeffries tube just behind Bilal and two other engineers, an Ensign and Midshipman still in the Academy. 

Calm, efficient, Taurik moved like a cat as he climbed, all muscle and sinew. Vulcans had evolved from cat-like ancestors, and the shift of his shoulder blades in his back was reminiscent of these ancient roots. Bilal coughed and helped him pump the door shut between the saucer and stardrive sections. She rasped, trying to speak, but she had winged a bit of the coolant cloud. A bad injury but not a deadly one. Yet. 

“Move,” he said, voice still smooth, face impassive. Sweat pricked from beneath his arms and along his spine; adrenaline needled him to keep moving, moving, moving. He put an encouraging hand to Bilal’s waist and pushed her into a corridor in the saucer section. She had saved his life once, when a Romulan phaser volley had caused a plasma conductor to burst. Dragged him out of harm’s way, made sure no one touched him as he fought to engage the an-prele meditations for his burned back. Now it was an honor to return the favor. Lieutenant Lenise, a field medic, saw her condition and gestured for them both to enter someone’s quarters. 

“I am needed elsewhere. The saucer section will most likely crash or ditch,” Taurik said, speaking in short words to get his point across. Left Bilal in good hands and sprinted down the corridors, pulling malfunctioning doors shut and barking for people to shelter in place. Too late for better options, now. 

He rolled toward a corridor bulkhead and fetched up next to Lieutenant Sam Lavelle. His friend’s face was almost white with fear. Teeth bared in a rictus grin. “Why, fancy meeting you here, Taurik.”

“Good to see you, Sam.” Taurik looked beyond him to a woman in a sciences uniform huddled over her two crying children, a seven-year-old girl and three-year-old boy. Several other crew members were diving into place, taking the forward wall as their best bet against impact. Commander Riker’s voice crackled over the comm, yelling for a thousand people to brace as they entered the atmosphere of Veridian III. 

“She’s going down,” Lavelle said, his voice low and woven into the din of screaming, the screeching of the stressed hull.

Taurik nodded, his expression calm save for the subtle dread in his eyes. There was a very real possibility that he and his crewmates would be dead within the next ten minutes. He glanced down the hall at the children, the little boy crying into his mother’s chest and the girl cuddled down into her baby doll. Twin tears rolled hot down his cheeks; Vulcan logic failed where children were concerned. If the saucer section didn’t break into millions of fragments upon impact he would help them from the ship. Memorized with a quick glance the section of bulkhead against which they huddled. H-28.

“Brace! Brace! Brace!” Someone called on the edge of panic. Not LaForge.

Taurik closed his eyes. They flew open when the _Enterprise_ struck the planet; the force was harder than anything he could have anticipated. His arms buckled, someone slammed into his legs, his left wrist broke with a wet snap. Pain barely registered. Gravity yanked, pushed, pulled, flung. The _Enterprise_ wailed as she strained and skidded. She had landed at a shallow angle but not shallow enough to absorb more of the impact. The saucer shuddered and pitched. Ground to a stop.

All was dark and silent.

Then: sniffling, coughing, a groan, two, three, the little girl asking for Mommy and the mother answering with a tired Baby I am here. The boy asked where his Lou-raccoon went. A few scattered swear words in six different languages. Sam prayed aloud as he crawled toward the children. Taurik, his mouth full of blood, spat and rolled onto his back, thought what the hell?, whispered “Holy _fuck,_ ” against his split lip.

He stood on shaking legs; his injuries were light, the wrist was the worst of it. Tucked his left arm close with his hand on the opposite shoulder to stabilize the joint. Sam helped the mother to her feet—Lieutenant Nguyen from linguistics, he could see now—the boy remained clinging to her legs. Taurik walked toward them, stepping over unconscious crewmembers, finding the stuffie raccoon with the side of his boot just as the emergency lighting flickered on. He handed the boy his Lou-raccoon and lifted the girl in his good arm, went to a panel that slid open at a touch. Her baby doll smelled like strawberries. A ladder, an outer bulkhead exit. Someone shrieked as they tried to stand and collapsed again. He let the girl slide to the ground and climbed the ladder with an awkward, hopping gait. The release toggle would not spring, so he forced it, wincing against the spikes of pain that shot up his left arm. He grunted, took a moment to rest.

Someone grabbed his calves below, pressed close, steadied him. Sam.

“Got you, Taurik. Try again.”

The clamps released on the second try, and a bright blue sky glowed above. Taurik took a moment to just stare at it in wonder. Gulped fresh air. Adrenaline dragged at him. He wanted to sleep. It would be hours before he could do so. He hopped up two more rungs, careful of Sam against his legs. Reached out, felt the hull. It had cooled in the time that the saucer coasted across the planet; a few crewmembers from other parts of the ship already stood on the saucer and clustered close to the bridge dome. He could see Commanders Troi and Riker assisting an ensign from the wreck of the main viewscreen. The _Enterprise_ saucer ticked and popped after the murderous burn of atmosphere and her skidding, sprawling death. 

Illogical; the ship was a thing, an object. And yet. The _Enterprise_ was no ordinary ship. Some called her The Lady. He remembered a phrase his mother was fond of saying: “A lady always knows just when to leave.”

He climbed the rest of the way out and lay down on his belly to reach down for the girl. Bomi, clutching her dolly. Lieutenant Nguyen followed, her right temple streaked with red blood and the eye swelling shut. In shock. But alive. The boy followed. Mav, crying into Lou’s grey fur. Sam. Ensign Benga from the shuttlebay. Taurik drew back from the exit portal when Sam saw his unnaturally bent arm and steered him away by the shoulder. 

“Rest, T. You’ve done enough.” Sam’s face was bruised, but all four of his limbs were in good working order. Taurik nodded once, spat blood. Winced when it hit the _Enterprise_ ’s hull. 

All able-bodied officers began applying triage. Deceased crew and passengers were laid out on the starboard side under blue blankets, surprisingly few for the destruction of a starship. Taurik, his arm in a temporary pressure cast that Nurse Alyssa Ogawa had given him, directed the distribution of emergency ration packs. At one point he snapped his attention toward Veridian III’s sun, his inner eyelid shutting for a moment against the glare. His neck prickled and adrenaline tingled like metal in his mouth, but the sun continued to burn above the mild springlike day. He saw several other people flinch at the star, stare at it a moment, then go back to the business of rescuing people still trapped in the saucer below their feet. Odd. He made eye contact with Commander Troi as she uncurled from a kneeling position by a sobbing Midshipman. She shook her head in wonderment and moved on. 

_Like someone just walked over our graves_ , he thought, reminded of an Earth expression that Sam liked to use. The moment of preternatural paranoia passed. The work of saving life continued.

  
  


*****

_Vorik. Vorik must have lived through similar before he died_ , Taurik sighed and tried to find a comfortable position on the double bunk. He and Sam Lavelle had been assigned evacuation quarters together aboard the _USS Farragut_ at their request. His friend had ducked out to allow Taurik an hour of meditation, but the time was almost up. All Taurik could think about was his brother aboard _Voyager_ , the ship pitching and yawing in the Badlands, the final conflagration that must have torn the ship apart. He felt sick to his stomach; whether it was from the pain medication that Alyssa had insisted upon or the thought of Vorik dying—no. He must turn away from this maelstrom.

He and Sam had ended their day with a debriefing by Captain Picard and the senior officer from each of their departments: Commander Riker and Lieutenant Commander LaForge. They called it a debriefing; what it had been was a post-mortem. The _Enterprise-D_ was not salvageable. Starfleet would take pieces of her to melt down and make anew, most likely in an _E_ -ship of the same designation. The remainder of the saucer would be reclaimed by the forests of Veridian III, her final resting place. 

Taurik stood and dressed in his standard black pajamas, careful with his arm. Still tender, as if the bones were floating inside, and indeed they had been. Alyssa said it had been a nasty impact fracture, with bone driven into bone. Healed wonderfully with several applications of the osteo-knit but the ache would come back to visit him during low pressure weather systems for the rest of his life. 

He wondered if Vorik had sustained such injuries when— _ki’guv, stop it, tu nirak._

The hardest part about his brother’s death was that there had been no closure. No bodies, no debris beyond trace amounts had come out of the Badlands. Starfleet had dredged the area with grudging cooperation from the Cardassian government. Aside from a few fragments there had been nothing. The crew of the _Voyager_ under Captain Janeway had been declared lost, but their deaths were not yet on record. Indeed, Starfleet had listened carefully to both Taurik and T’Pel, wife of Commander Tuvok, in order to draw this conclusion. Neither he nor T’Pel had felt their family members die through the telepathic bonds that siblings and spouses shared. 

_Vorik was not just “family member” or “sibling.” My little brother. My d’Sakai._

Taurik splashed cold water on his face in the head. Knew he had dark smudges beneath his eyes. Winced when he palmed his lower lip. The split needed no treatment; it could knit itself. And among the vast number of contusions, concussions, broken bones, scrapes, burns, smoke inhalation, glass cuts, dislocations, and other grievous bodily harm to the _Enterprise_ crew, he had decided to let nature take its course once his radius and ulna were set. Thanked Alyssa and slid off of the emergency bio bed, went to wait for rescue in the shade of the portside hull. 

Sam tripped the door comm in inquiry. The _Farragut_ had a chime that sounded like a disappointed haurok bird. 

“Come in,” Taurik said, lying down on his right side to spare his arm. 

Knuckles still scabbed, jaw bruised, a cheeky grin on his face. Sam entered their temporary quarters and began undoing his uniform before the door had slid entirely shut. 

“You look happy,” Taurik said, taking refuge in small talk. Vulcans preferred silence to aimless prattle, but he made concessions for—and secretly delighted in—his Human friends.

“Oh, I was off doing something life affirming,” Sam said, slipping into his own issued pajamas. Most of their personal effects had been lost in a multi-deck plasma fire that slowly suffocated itself and left anything not burnt ruined by char instead. The only possessions Taurik had left were a few holos and all of his subspace correspondence on a personal padd. Even that reeked of smoke.

Taurik knew that “life affirming” was Sam’s euphemism for having sexual intercourse. “Who was your paramour?” he asked. Did not really wish to know, but his mind kept worrying over Vorik. 

“Lieutenant Hawk. Blond, ice-blue eyes, absolutely beautiful.” Sam grinned, almost shy. 

“I thought you preferred brunettes.”

“You should see him.”

Taurik thought back to the arrival of the _Farragut._ Hawk, indeed gifted in pulchritude, had been one of the officers inducting the _Enterprise_ crew aboard as survivors. No duties, no orders, visits to Sickbay and counseling centers mandatory. “I did see him.”

“A fun fling, but it’ll never last. He is a Leo and I am a Capricorn.” Sam fell into bed beside Taurik and scooted close under the comforter. “Lights. Out.”

Theirs was not a sexual relationship. Taurik had named Sam his t’hy’la, but it was a deep brotherly love as deep as that he felt for his twin. A week after Vorik’s death _(disappearance, it must be, this is only interim)_ Taurik had been alone in his quarters, utterly wrecked and his attempts at the Disciplines failed. He had been pacing the small space, wringing his fingers in agitation, popping the knuckles. A bad habit, damaging even, for a Vulcan with telepathic touch points in his fingertips. His heart had pounded and tightened in his side and he had kept glancing at the terminal on his desk. Willing a call from Starfleet, his parents, the Vulcan High Command, anyone, telling him that _Voyager_ had been found and all hands accounted for. Magical thinking. 

He had been doubled over the head, stress causing him to expunge the contents of his stomach, when Sam came into his quarters. Taurik had left him keyed into the entry system. Sam had knelt beside him without a word and lay one Human-cool hand across his forehead. Gave him water, made him lay down, breathed with him until the anxiety-induced hyperventilation passed. 

When Sam had turned to go, Taurik held onto his wrist with a grip hard enough to bruise, so Sam had simply laid down beside him. Drew into his arms, and let the Vulcan cry. Taurik hadn’t made a sound and Sam never spoke of the incident, but he did return to their old cabin for the next two months, and they slept side by side. 

Taurik was sure his comfort against Sam’s warm body derived from being in the womb with Vorik. Identical twins cuddled and caressed, even in utero. 

“Bolau tu shom,” Sam now whispered in the dark. You need to rest. His accent was getting better, the Raalian curl to the L-letters and o-circumflex almost perfect. 

“I keep thinking.”

“So stop.” Sam’s voice wavered with suppressed laughter.

“I am trying.”

Suppression. Sam said that he was having such trouble with grief because he was suppressing it, rather than accepting it and reaching for mastery. Taurik felt that loss upon loss was the issue. His brother was _(_ _perhaps, possibly not_ _)_ dead, his home was gone. The future was uncertain. There were rumblings that the _Enterprise-D_ engineers were to be stationed at Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards off of Mars Colony. That the _Enterprise-E_ would be a _Sovereign_ _-class_ ship originally designated as the _Charis_. Her specs promised that she would be—

“Taurik.”

“I am _trying,_ Sam.”

“Would it help?”

Another euphemism. By “it” Sam meant mind-touch. 

“Perhaps.” 

“Then let me help.”

Taurik reached for Sam’s face, his left arm feeling watery and weak but the psi-receptivity held true. The first two fingers to Sam’s right temple, one on his cheekbone. A light Touch, one that conveyed feeling and intent rather than words. His friend’s warmth and love found him first, then good humor, compassion, fatigue, post-coital confidence, grief, a desire to take away his pain and frustration that he could not. A wish that his friendship could be enough. Knowing that it couldn’t be and that this was right. Taurik sighed and felt as if he were slipping into warm water. Close, caressed.

Sleep found him and he let his hand fall. 

  
  


*****

  
  


“Thank you for inviting me to be your best man.”

Taurik paused, plasma welder poised over a plating joint. Blinked as Sam grinned with a brightness that he often described as “shit-eating.” He could not identify the new phrase.

“You’re adorable when you’re confused.” 

“If you are not going to be of any help you may leave,” Taurik said with his usual dry humor. Turned back to apply the plasma beam. “I am deeply affronted.” 

“When’s she arriving?”

“My wife will arrive tomorrow at 06:35 hours.” 

“L’Del, right?”

“Correct.” Taurik had not seen her for six years prior to their Bonding day on Vulcan; he liked that she had cut her black hair short. Her eyes were dark enough that the cool brown of her irises bordered on violet. Long fingers, narrow wrists, played the neik’molu cedar flute. Their reinforced Bond felt like a foreign object in his mind, a dismaying surprise after anticipating his wedding as a moment of joy. Maybe it had something to do with the void that Vorik’s sibling-bond had left behind. 

Sometimes Taurik swore he could feel the inklings of his brother’s presence. An illusion of his voice, a sense of annoyance or insecurity or wry amusement. Sparks of recognition, quickly extinguished. He had corresponded with T'Pel; she felt the same of her husband Tuvok.

“Think she’ll like me?” Sam was leaning against a cold plasma conduit that would soon connect to the tachyon field generators.

“Perhaps L’Del would prefer a different sort of pet,” Taurik said. Ducked to hide the smile that flitted across his face as Sam rocked back and laughed with immodest volume. Commander LaForge, three levels up, leaned over the railing and shook his head in exasperated affection. 

“Steady, Mr. Taurik,” he called. Cybernetic eyes as focused as twin blue stars. “I want those plates squared true.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sorry, sir!”

“At ease, gentlemen.” LaForge disappeared onto the catwalk again. 

Sam looked up at the new intermix chamber with admiration. “She really is a beauty. Glad I get to see her before I report to the _Vega._ Kind of a shame. I won’t see the _Enterprise-E_ again ‘til well after she’s launched.”

“I shall send you a postcard.”

“Real cold, Taurik.” Sam fiddled with a pair of dilithium calipers from Taurik’s personal engineering kit. “But seriously, how come I couldn’t be a part of your wedding?”

“You were a family witness. Bonding is only for the married couple, unless you want my marriage to become a rekuhsu’guv, which—all due respect—I do not want.”

“Rekuhsu’guv?”

“Your word is ‘threesome.’”

Sam’s mouth fell open. “Vulcans have a word for that?”

“Vulcans have several words for that, depending on one’s place of birth. And yes. We also have words for—” He caught himself, reassessed the weld line and found it good. “Another time, when we are not in Main Engineering. If you are going to learn my dialect you will have to learn some curse words. It was inevitable.”

“Hey T, say ‘tabarnak.’”

“Tabarnak.”

Sam chuckled. “That’s the Quebecois equivalent of fu—” He fell silent when Lieutenant Bilal went by with a patch kit. Gave her a wide grin. “The language of my people.”

“Hemar,” she replied. Jackass. A small smile implying that she didn’t really mean it.

Taurik listened to their flirtatious banter and felt a little more whole than he had since Vorik went missing. It had been just over a year since the _Voyager_ disappeared, nine months since the _Enterprise-D_ had died. Grief still dominated his idle hours, so he chose not to be idle. The commanders of Utopia Planitia had noticed and offered him a position as assistant to the Chief Engineer of the subspace resonator arrays. The paperwork had been filed with Starfleet and now they awaited the response. It would be good to stay stationary for a while with his new wife; perhaps they would try for a child during his Time.

Sam nudged him in the side. “Hey, Taurik, me and Aisha are going to get a drink at The Phobos. Meet you later?”

Taurik glanced up at Bilal, standing against the doorway with a kittenish smile on her face. She was eyeing Sam’s long legs. “Yes. I am going to finish my shift and then help T’Xali with the deuterium cartridges.”

“Your shift ended twelve minutes ago. Be sure to rest, Taurik. See you in the morning, bright and early. It’s gonna be our last day off together for some time, so let’s make it count.” Sam gave his shoulder a squeeze and rose, strolling to Bilal with flirtatious grace. 

Mastery over baseless fear. The faint rise of panic that he felt whenever someone close to him left was lessening with time, but it was still there. Taurik paused in his welding and meditated for a few moments, breathing long and deep through the spasm of emotion. It calmed. He would see Sam in the morning. The _Vega_ was a science vessel surveying a tame region of space for inhabitable moons. The odds of losing him were twenty-six thousand, four hundred and twenty-two to one. The odds of losing a ship in the Badlands was twelve to one. 

Welds finished, he rose and replaced the items in his kit with gentle pats to each item, making sure they rested securely in the memory foam. A trace of Sam’s psychic imprint lingered on the calipers. He ran his thumb over it, trying to master sadness. 

He would miss their aimless talks, their wicked mutual teasing. He wondered if Sam’s Raalian dialect would slip. His lessons with Sam had gone past the tourist level and deep into Vulcan culture, even skirting the taboo. It felt like talking with Vorik again.

He remembered going with Vorik to a punk-bluegrass concert in Golden Gate Park as first-year cadets. They had been propositioned, several times, by inebriated concert-goers for a threesome. Vorik, mentally rifling through his lackluster Standard vocabulary, had almost accepted the first time out of politeness when Taurik barked “No thank you.” Took his twin by the elbow and pulled him farther away from the stage, hissing that the Human man had been asking for a rekuhsu’guv. 

Vorik, caught off-guard, had almost laughed. Corrected himself. Kept to a stoic expression but began to look at the people around him in a new, curious light. 

Taurik had always envied his brother his ability to try new things. The weekend concerts, whitewater rafting, caving in the limestone caverns of the western Sierra Nevadas. He had eventually mastered informal speech from several Earth cultures. Vorik, in spite of his inborn insecurity, also had a gift for friendship and ability to put others at ease, once they got past their own emotional hang-ups about “Vulcanness.” There was an easy grace in his limbs. Clothes, such as a Somalian macawis or Hawaiian print shirts hung easily from his hips or shoulders, while Taurik felt uncomfortable out of uniform or Vulcan-cut clothing. Vorik could slouch in a chair, put his feet up on a desk, positions that Taurik felt ridiculous taking. 

Later, his commitment to the deuterium cartridges fulfilled, Taurik meditated before browsing several venues on Mars Colony for something to try with Sam. Settled on an electronic swing dance in the Kumagawa Quarter. String lights under the stars, fire fountains, ringed by a botanical garden. A good introduction for L’Del to the Human and Starfleet cultures that dominated the red planet. Aisha would most likely want to come too, for she was staying with Taurik and a handful of other engineers at the Fleet Yards. 

A message popped up on his comm just after he was booked reservations. LaForge, asking if he would come back to the _Enterprise-E_ after she had completed her first year of missions. After a few moments’ thought, Taurik accepted. Planetary duty would be a good respite, but his heart was out in deep space. He might even find Vorik, one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Taurik has a dirty mouth. I thought he would, as the eldest sibling. Not that this is autobiographical, or anything.


	3. Two of Cups

Two of Cups:  _ Unrequited love, rejection, falling out; new love, romantic love, the birth of a lasting friendship; a pure, honest, solid connection _

It is a common aphorism on several Federation planets that “time heals all wounds.” Vorik wondered how much time; he had been a pariah for weeks after word got out that Chief Engineer B’Elanna Torres had wiped the proverbial floor with him on the gallicite planet. Some called it well-deserved. Some understood that he had not been himself and suffering from a form of brain damage. The fact of it was, now all of  _ Voyager _ knew of his failed marriage proposal, his dislocated jaw, and the early indicators of pon farr. Vorik had shamed both himself and the Vulcan people.

Lieutenant Torres had declined to press charges against him, most likely on the advice of Tuvok and Janeway. However, that didn’t stop her from transferring him to beta shift and assigning him the most basic, degrading tasks in Engineering as revenge. She had walked by him as he came on duty the night before, her teeth bared in an exaggerated smile, and wished him luck defragging the computer access points in the Jeffries tubes. This could be done automatically at the central terminal in Main Engineering, but he had a hunch that Torres herself had disabled this function.

Now he lay on his back in his bunk, trying to find a comfortable position after contorting and hunching bowels of the ship. His hips hurt. His knees hurt. He had smacked the same spot on his forehead three times in succession and now his skin rose in a hard green knot just under his bangs. Which, of course, he had cut shorter only the week before. 

Lieutenant Susan Nicoletti, the only officer who deigned to speak with him off-duty, had asked if he was turning into a unicorn as she went off alpha shift. Meeting her boyfriend for the botanical garden party on the holodeck, no doubt. Lieutenant Conley, from Geosciences. Her remark was meant kindly. She had smiled, patted his arm. Invited him to get coffee and chocolate-dipped biscotti later.

Vorik wished he could sink into a hole and die in peace.

In retrospect, what had seemed infinitely logical while he was inside the burn of pon farr proved to be decidedly  _ illogical _ _._ Torres and himself were two diametrically opposed poles. Aside from their engineering know-how and being of minority species on a largely Human crew, they had nothing in common. Torres was short-tempered, self-destructive, held grudges, burned passionately as a matter of course. He respected her greatly and admired her as one would a bright star, but she was too fierce, too illogical to be a suitable mate for a Vulcan.

Nicoletti sympathized, visiting him in his quarters with espresso and the promised Italian biscuits. She played her oboe along with a piano recording for him, something by Vivaldi in a minor key that suited his mood. Vorik listened with his eyes closed. Remembered that his sister-in-law was an accomplished dune-cedar flautist, which made him miss his brother Taurik with a fierceness that he had not felt in quite a while. 

Grief had become mourning where his brother and bondmate Valen were concerned. When  _ Voyager  _ left the Alpha Quadrant he had been on duty, trying to hold together the warp core with what Lieutenant Carey had called a wing and a prayer. He had staggered, momentarily, when his marriage, sibling, and parental bonds had stretched thin by distance and—snapped. Nothing. The void that followed had sent him to his knees, fighting catatonia, robbed suddenly of telepathic senses that he had relied upon for his entire life. It was only the immediate danger that brought him back around, the instinct to survive reasserting itself. He had clawed back up to a standing position and rode out the plasma storm.

Removal from one’s people and planet was bad enough; everyone aboard  _ Voyager _ had experienced this trauma. However, going through pon farr alone, with no mate, family, or Clan to ensure his survival had been a terrifying experience. In his more lucid moments he had wanted to turn to Tuvok for guidance, but instinct would reassert itself and he growled at the thought of another male invading his quarters, being near B’Elanna, being anywhere near him at all. For the first time since  _ Voyager _ had been flung to the Delta Quadrant he felt totally, nakedly alone. 

  
  


*****

“Ensign Vorik,” Torres barked his name with an open-throated volume that reverberated from the top of the warp core chamber. Everyone heard it; a few of his fellow engineers glanced at him with various shades of cattish amusement or sympathy. “Come up here, please.”

Vorik suppressed an urge to sigh and went to the lift, dragging his boots on the carpet in a subtle display of resistance. The material had begun to wear thin, two-point-seven years in the Delta Quadrant without refit. He wondered what the floor would look like in seventy-some years when  _ Voyager _ limped into sector 001. 

“I’m assigning you a special appointment to the communications array,” Torres said as he stepped off of the lift. Her movements swift, agitated, as she ran a diagnostic program from the catwalk terminal. Normal movement, for her. “Our resident linguist created a subspace-sweep communications device with Lieutenant Carey a few months ago but it keeps breaking down. Carey is busy with the sirillium conversion at the moment. The sensor is rigged to record any subspace communications for addition of new languages to the universal translator. Lieutenant McMinn is in her office on deck seven. Go there.”

“Yes, sir.” Vorik bowed in acknowledgement and went to retrieve his kit. He had been transferred back to alpha shift, now that the incident at the gallicite planet was three months in the past. Perhaps Torres was feeling magnanimous. 

Though everyone on  _ Voyager _ knew everyone else—at 147 people, it was a small crew—Vorik did not know anyone from the sciences division well. With the exception of The Doctor, of course. He could still feel the hologram manhandling him through his medical appointments, wrenching his head to the side to place a cortical monitor beneath his ear. He had the bedside manner of a three-legged dzharel. 

“Come in, Mr. Vorik,” McMinn called, the slightest hint of a Scottish burr coming through the comm speaker. Like many aboard  _ Voyager _ , native accents became more pronounced in stressful situations, and McMinn, sprawled on her back beneath her communications array, was no exception. “Blasted thing.”

“Lieutenant Torres sent me to assist you, sir.” Vorik knelt, trying to peer beneath the sensor hook-up that was attached directly into the ship’s communications panel in the portside bulkhead. It was awkward addressing a fellow crewmember’s legs. 

“Thank you.” She scooted out on her back and bumped her forehead on the edge of the sensor device. “Damn it! Sodding piece of junk!”

McMinn screwed up her face and clapped one hand to her hairline. Her strawberry blonde hair was coming unravelled from a chignon at the nape of her neck, and pain-tears squeezed from her gray eyes. Vorik set aside his kit with alacrity and helped her from beneath the sensor, his hands circling her narrow wrists. 

“Shall I call medical, sir?”

“Hah, no. I’d come back here with more bruises from the exam alone. And enough with that ‘sir’ business; we’re both going to have to lay on the floor together and that is no time for superfluous title.” McMinn winced and tried to look up at her own forehead. “How bad is it?”

“No bleeding, just a minor pressure wound,” Vorik said, tilting McMinn’s face toward the overhead light with a gentle hand to her jaw. A crescent moon of red blood lay against her pale skin. He noticed her looking up at his own injury with an arched eyebrow and wry smile.

“Aren’t we two peas in a pod?” She asked, laughing quietly as he helped her to her feet. “Nemaiyo, t’na-veh t’ha.” 

Vorik blinked, the Raalian phrase for “thank you, my friend” sounding rare and wonderful to his ears. He had not heard his own tongue in a long time. Not perfect, for McMinn was tired and her native accent colored the words. She usually prided herself on speaking in approximation to the accent best befitting a language. This much he knew about her. He realized that he was still holding her wrists and that he had not replied. “Tu ath-ne. I come to serve.”

She sighed and kicked a diode welder beneath the sensor. “I need to regroup before I work with that beast again. Do you have a few minutes for tea?”

He did. Welcomed it, in fact.

  
  


*****

  
  


He should have focused his energies on getting to know the women on  _ Voyager _ better than he had, but hindsight was twenty-twenty. Of the seventy-four women who were serving, thirty-six were in committed relationships with fellow crew, while the remaining were single or honoring their partners back home. Courtship was yet rare on Vulcan; many marriages were pre-arranged as social insurance against the death or disfigurement of unattached males. Vorik, who had been bonded from the age of fourteen, did not know how to “date,” as Humans called it. He saw most of the women aboard  _ Voyager _ as colleagues, nothing more. 

Of course, at the time of his pon farr Liv had been engaged to Ensign Gibson. They had a falling out over his inappropriate attention to Ensign Lyndsay Ballard.

Human courtship mystified him in spite of copious anthropological files on the subject. He decided to continue to treat McMinn as an equal and feel his way out from there.

“What is your first name?”

“Liv. What is yours?” 

Vorik looked over at her as she held a plasma welder over a comm connection nodule. A small, one-sided smile tugged at her mouth. Teasing. “Vorik” was analogous to a first name. The rest of his name was family and Clan designation. As a linguist, Liv would know this. 

“Ricky,” he deadpanned. Was rewarded with a laugh that sounded like a shy rav bird warbling, hidden deep within a lall’en tree. 

  
  


*****

  
  


“Okay, let’s go with prosaic. What is your favorite color, Vorik-my-lad?”

“Yon’zhar.” Red-orange, the color of sandstone. The color of his home. “Ra vu’qual?”

“Plah’yaar.” Blue-green, the color of her oceans. 

“What is your favorite dinosaur?” Again, the cheeky, one-sided smile as Liv compared and translated several xeno-suffixes on a paad. Her hair was down, ruddy-blonde waves curled from where they had tumbled as she unpinned her bun. She was tiny, just 152.45 centimeters by his estimation. Folded like a cat into her lounge chair, with her legs cast over the arm. Her toes curled and uncurled in contentment within her black stockings.

Vorik, sitting cross-legged on her bunk, tented his fingers and tried to remember the names of creatures from Earth’s paleolithic history. “Triceratops?”

“Ankylosaurus.” 

He gazed around her cabin, thinking it more pleasant than the other cabins he had been in. Turquoise spread on the bed, a warm-hued cedar chest against the wall with an enameled brass bowl on top, made to look like the planet Mars. Thick pillar candles that smelled of vanilla. She had several rock collections, among them red sandstone specimens with dramatic bands of cross-bedding, a fossil record of ancient dunes and wind storms. Silicate crystals: amethyst, yellow citrine, fluorite in minty greens. Some rare blue crystals with boron-blue coloring as deep as that of the Hope Diamond, lost during the Terran wars of the 1990s. 

When he looked back to her she had stopped entering data and gazed at him with a fond expression. Rose and walked to the niche full of stones. “Here. This one is for you. It’s from the northern shore of the Voroth Sea. I think it’d mean more to you. I picked it up just because it was pretty.”

She pressed a smooth, perfectly circular cobble into his hand. It fit into the cup of his palm, a stone banded in dark and pale greys with tiny, deep red inclusions.

“Those spots are actually garnets. I had Conley run it through the mass spectrometer, once. A bit of home for you to keep.”

Vorik traced his fingertips over the cobble, wrapped his hand around it to warm the stone. His throat had closed tight in unexpected grief. Taurik, Bal, Shara, his mother, his father. The summers he and Taurik had explored the cobble beaches and tide pools on Xir’tan, his brother trading him for bits of stones or sea glass or interesting-looking driftwood. When they were six Taurik had found a conical mel’tak tooth, a creature similar to Terran orcas, washed up on a strand. Vorik, quite literally green with childish envy, had pelted his brother with a kelp-root. Taurik, gentle and loving, had offered the tooth to Vorik when he saw how much it might mean to him. Vorik had burst into tears of guilt and hugged Taurik with fierce love. They had kept the tooth on a shared shelf in the common room. 

Vorik, sitting on Liv’s bunk, willed himself back to the present. He ground out a soft “Nemaiyo,” not trusting his tongue further. His voice was already raw with the effort to remember the Disciplines. 

Liv seemed to understand. She sat down beside him and lay one hand over his back. Listening, silent. One of the arts of a linguist.

He leaned into her touch.

  
  


*****

The usual holodeck-generated Polynesian luaus and Caitian laser tag parties had begun to fall flat from overuse. In response, someone had recreated the view from Tolor VI. A dark world, the colony was situated on a moon in the Alpha Quadrant. Orbited a violet gas giant known for its particularly spectacular lightning storms. There was a beach, yes, but it was of black volcanic sand that flashed with indigo-blue bioluminescence when stepped upon. The unknown holo-artist had designed the program to feature perpetual night, a bonfire, traditional klaar benches for lightning viewing, and a Talemstran DJ.

Vorik, barefoot and already dressed in the black, form-fitting Tolorix slacks and deep green tunic, stopped by Liv’s quarters to ask if she wanted to accompany him to that night’s party. She answered the door likewise attired, only in the traditional black, backless dress with voluminous skirts that fell to the floor. Barefoot, bare-armed, her fair hair loose. Long lashes and violet powder on her eyelids. Collar high to her throat. Vorik’s heart briefly pounded in his side at the sight of so much bare skin. The barest hint of rib and the sides of Liv’s small breasts teased him as she moved. 

From the tilt of her chin and maddening hint of a smile, she knew it, too.

B’Elanna and Tom Paris were leaning against a volcanic stone pillar when they arrived, Harry Kim tugging at his own deep-blue tunic. Everyone went sleeveless, for the moon—and holodeck—were warmer than  _ Voyager _ standard. A welcome feeling for Vorik, and Tuvok apparently. Although the Lieutenant Commander was not out of uniform, he was standing with his arms folded behind his back and staring in silent contemplation over dark seas. 

Vorik turned from B’Elanna when he noticed her smirking in his direction. She was professional when on-duty but the bad blood between them seemed to boil when they were off. Luckily, Liv seemed drawn down to the surf and looped her arm around his. 

“Maybe They programmed in some sea shells. Pity we can’t take them back to quarters, but it’s worth a look.” Liv’s low voice caressed him as they walked away from the illumination of the bonfire. The sea was bathwater warm as it washed over their feet. Ribbons of bioluminescence trailing from their ankles. A dozen crewmembers were already skinny dipping, judging by the clothes in piles along the beach. Some were dancing with each other in the subtle, looping rhythm of the DJ’s music. “Aha! Look. Like an abalone shell, only the outer shell’s scarlet red. Here, the first is for you.”

“Perhaps we can make them from the replicators,” Vorik said, taking the hand-sized shell from Liv’s hand. “A small one, perhaps the size of one’s thumb. Enough material could be spared.”

“Sweet sentiment, but I have a paua shell I can just give you,” she said, rising. “It’s in the cedar chest.”

“You already gave me several gifts. The stone from Xir’tan. And the box of real Irish breakfast tea. And the excuse to leave Engineering when Torres made me realign the dilithium matrix without the gravimetric converter.”

“My replicator broke. Plus, Torres’s behaviour toward you is well shan, the high-strung bi—” Liv caught herself, bit her lips together. Though they walked in thick shadow Vorik could see the hardness in her grey eyes.

“You do not much admire her, do you?” Vorik turned the shell over and over in his hands. 

“No, to be honest. I wish her well with all of the love one gentlebeing should have for another, but I’d prefer not to be within one quadrant of her if given the choice. She has a long road to walk, and I don’t like it when people heap their problems on other people’s shoulders without asking. She’s self-destructive, lacks the ability to look inward, blames. Tom, he seems a good soul and a positive influence on her. I guess two broken spirits can do a lot to mend one another. Fit in where the other lacks.” Liv gestured vaguely at the bonfire behind them. “I wish them luck, far from me. And you.”

They walked in silence for a time, Liv trying to catch her rising temper back into place and Vorik thinking of his initial assessment of B’Elanna Torres. He had heaped his own problem on her shoulders without asking. Forced a bonding meld on her without knowing precisely what he had been doing. Had been arrogant enough to think that their strengths and weaknesses would counteract one other’s. By Liv’s own rubric he was as faulted and broken as Torres. 

Liv placed her hand on Vorik’s back with the same silent gesture that she used whenever his control slipped and grief or shame or loss surged to the forefront of his mind. She was naturally psi-low, but Humans could be deeply empathic with those who were close to them. Others, not so much. Perhaps her resentment of Torres, whom she barely knew, was a failure; his own logic was uncertain and made him unsure. 

They were coming to the far end of the holodeck, though the vista of the dark moon and lightning-lit planet seemed to stretch kilometers farther. A large, natural stone plinth with a serpentine sculpture of a Tolonix sea snake on top marked the boundary of the beach. Vorik was pleased to see Nicoletti and Conley sitting in the black sand at the end of the cove. A thin band of titanium set with a semi-precious amethyst gem glittered on her left ring finger; he had proposed to her a month prior and she had accepted. The ring was a concession to how far removed they were from home; he had made it with scrounged and donated materials. Vorik found the ring more pleasing than most traditional Terran jewelry, which seemed ostentatious and without purpose, such as Clan designation or birth order. 

“Romantic, isn’t it?” Nicoletti smiled as they passed and cuddled into her fiancé’s arms. She was usually reserved, her demeanor cool and efficient when on-duty, but in the dark and after what looked like two glasses of real Julionic wine, she had relaxed. Sea breezes ruffled her auburn hair, and her legs were pale against the orange blanket on which she and Conley sat. This rumpled appearance suited her.

Liv didn’t stop at the plinth but scrambled on top, waiting for a moment for Vorik, who climbed after her with smooth movements based on practice. She grinned and nodded down on the other side of the rough stone, where a tiny, sheltered cove marked the true boundary of the holodeck; the far side of it set at a sharp angle in the stone to indicate the wall. They down-climbed, stood with their feet in the sand of their own private, albeit tiny, beach. Vorik thought of his dalliances with his bondmate Valen, their awkward, late-adolescent caresses and sex that hadn’t been quite loving, not yet. Their favorite hideaway had been on a beach similar to this, behind several large boulders and under the shade of a driftwood pergola that someone had built and left behind. Sea grasses had hissed and murmured, scarlet birds sighed and called.

He turned to Liv, who was sweeping her toes through the water, which sparkled with the wondrous indigo luminescence. He caught her by her wrist, gentle, pulled her to him. She nuzzled into his neck, encouraging, and shifted her center of gravity as Vorik picked her up and set her on a natural scoop in the stone wall. He pushed up her black skirts, and she hooked his legs with her pale feet. Wordless, yet they understood one another well. He wanted to meld with her with a light Touch, but after what had happened in Engineering during his pon farr… His confidence was not what it had been. Words, caress and facial expression alone would have to suffice. He locked eyes with her, deep brown to her grey, encouraged by her intimate gaze that invited coital union. She helped him with his clothes and breathed hard against his shoulder as they moved together, unhurried, deep, savoring sensation. He ran the backs of his fingers up her bare back, trying not to touch her with the psi-points in his fingertips.

Vorik tucked his cheek against Liv’s hair, which smelled of vanilla. Closed his eyes. This was what he had wanted when he was deep in pon farr, this sense of being enveloped, welcomed, warm. Safe. The hologram T’Pera had felt like an empty shell, and he had withdrawn from her in the middle of their sex and simply deleted the program; it had been a humiliating half hour. 

This time with Liv still felt a little lonely and removed, for on Vulcan sex always involved some sort of meld, glancing or intimate. His youth, inexperience, and lack of guidance hurt him here. Still, Liv’s body and voice were encouraging; she whispered words of love, friendship, thanks, as they moved together. He liked her hands in his hair, against the nape of his neck, the burr that sounded like purring. His heart warmed; this was not the frantic coupling he had experienced with his bondmate but lovemaking, the first he had ever felt. 

Later, along the main beach, they danced, traded shells and small talk with Nicoletti, Conley, The Doctor, Kes. To Vorik’s surprise, Tom and B’Elanna approached their group and stayed a few minutes, Tom taking time to talk to Vorik with genuine overtures of friendship. B’Elanna, her arms folded across her chest and head turned away, radiated impatience. As a counterpoint, Tom invited Vorik to try the caving program of the Jewelwind Cavesystem in South Dakota, and Vorik accepted. 

Liv nudged him in the arm and whispered: “See? Tom’s a good soul.”

  
  


*****

  
  


“Here.” Vorik helped Liv sit up on the biobed and handed her the blue robe that she had requested from her quarters. She was shivering from the effects of topical analgesics and system-wide painkillers. For a Human, the Vulcan enok-ka’fi pain meditations went only so far. The EM discharge from the deck seven vent systems had struck her on the spine and caused deeper damage than it had in crewman Gibson. He had already been treated and released. Liv had argued with The Doctor to let her recuperate in her quarters.

“Thank you,” Liv said, pulling the thick robe over her shoulders. The robe had been a joke gift for her 27th birthday from Lieutenant Chattaway; it had old-fashioned gold braids at the wrist that signified lieutenant junior grade, sciences division, from the 2260s. “Let’s get out of here before The Doctor decides to give me a full lipid panel or some such nonsense. I’m glad that ‘haunting’ debacle is over with; I like stories of ghosties and long-legged beasties as much as anyone, but living through one is an entirely different matter.”

“Shall I tell you the story of the nuckelavee?” Vorik asked as they walked to her quarters. Dark humor in this; the story was terrifying, simultaneously Liv’s most and least favorite traditional tale of the Northern Isles.

She shuddered. “Another time.”

Vorik now spent more time in her quarters than he did his own, from which he had removed the bunks and kept as a meditation chamber. He also taught classes on the Vulcan mental Disciplines to crewmembers who found that meditation helped cope with loneliness, longing, boredom, and any of the other myriad afflictions that deep-space travel forced them to endure. The sporadic messages from home had soothed some, sharpened negative emotions in others. To Vorik’s relief, Lieutenant Tuvok had begun to spend more time with him as a fellow Vulcan rather than a superior officer. They would never be friends, but he felt a little less alienated from all that he was. 

He gave Liv a cup of tea and a book of pre-Reform epics from the poet T’Mul. Sexy poetry, she called it, along the lines of D.H. Lawrence. Lay down beside her with his head on her thigh and sighed as Liv ran her fingers through his sleek black hair. He had missed her presence.

After several cantos Liv lay the book down and traced her fingers across Vorik’s temple. An invitation. 

He sat opposite her, allowing for them both to find comfort in the losherok position, which was less strenuous than full loshirak. Placed her hand on the correct meld positions on his face before caressing her own, finding the psi-point lock that brought them together. Her eyes watered, so she closed them, breathed deep. 

_ I am here _ , he said into the meld. He never reached far into her mind, for a marriage Bond was not the goal. Yet. They had time.  _ Ashal-veh _ .

_ Mak-veh. _ Her joy-without-words. Vorik watched a smile flutter onto her mouth.  _ Welcome, my Vorik. _

_ Tu t’nash-ve t’lema. _

_ The one who walks in your dreams. _

_ Ah’. Yes.  _

_ Home.  _


	4. Two of Pentacles

Two of Pentacles:  _ growth through change, welcome change, movement and flux _

  
  


Paternal leave in Starfleet was generous. Taurik took the entire Vulcan calendar year to accompany L’Del to their home, not in Raal but in ShiKahr where her parents and Clan originated from. In a matrilineal race the son-in-law must be the mobile one, and Taurik was happy to go. There was little for him in Raal; his father had died from an aortic defect that had troubled him since birth. His mother, T’Sara, had gone to live with his sisters in the small village of V’Lua to the north, where Bal had her pottery kiln and position at the Kitau’kov Arts Academy. 

These changes, which would have once sent him to his knees in intense meditation for loss, parted around him like water instead. Parents should die before their children; this was a natural order that dulled his grief to sorrow in short order. His only regret was that Tybik had not been able to meet his first grandchild. 

L’Del, still active in her tenth month of pregnancy, liked walking with him on the ancient pilgrim roads in the Kahr Basin. The Arches of ShenKar, close to the town of Pret, were a favorite destination.

The spring season was still mild, hot midday but icy at night. They went in the mornings, before the sun climbed too high, and stopped two kilometers later at the Natural Bridge of the Gol’nevsu. L’Del lay a hand on her round belly, filling out the embroidered maternity dress that T’Shara had sent her as a Mother-gift. From behind she did not look pregnant; her waist was yet narrow. L’Del liked to amuse herself by turning around to watch the people raise their eyebrows in surprise.

The Bridge was wide and accommodated a small crowd, mostly Vulcan, some on the pilgrimage trail that led to The Stone of T’Kar, a carved pillar of labradorite that shone blue. The disciples all wore bright blue shawls to keep off the brutal sun for crossing the Ron’tu Basin several kilometers ahead. Hot wind whipped around them, and L’Del, her center of gravity shifted forward, stumbled and dropped her steel canteen. It rolled over the edge of the Bridge with a prodigious clatter. Taurik, trained by Starfleet for diverse kinds of terrain navigation, down-climbed the southern side of the Bridge after it, scraping his hands and cheek on the sandstone, any exposed skin on the thorned ker’at bushes, and gouged one calf on the branch of a dead llal’en tree. The bottle lay intact in a drift of ruddy sand. He bent to retrieve it and stood up to see L’Del and two bewildered pilgrims standing with him beneath the Bridge; they had descended using the hand-carved stairs on the north side. 

L’Del stood with her arms folded across her breasts, biting the inside of her lips to keep a broad smile off of her face. Taurik was glad for the green exertion flush on his cheeks; he would have blushed, otherwise. 

The white-haired man bent and tied Taurik’s bleeding calf with the blue shawl taken from his own shoulders. 

“Nu’ri ashaya,” the man said in well-meant admonishment. Young love. He walked back to his grey-haired wife and paired his fingers, caressed her hand. They shared the woman’s shawl and ascended the stairs, leaving L’Del and Taurik standing in the stripe of shadow beneath the Bridge.

“You great idiot,” L’Del said, not unkindly, and laughed. Gathered her husband in her arms. Looked up to see several pilgrims looking down at them in varying allowances of amusement.

*****

The birth of his baby girl was simultaneously the most terrifying and joyful moment of his life; he held her, wailing, covered in blood and womb waters, her dark hair curling about her head, her fingers already seeking his. Grasping, clinging, nascent telepathic bonds of father and daughter singing back and forth between them. L’Del’s pain and joy there too, and he knelt beside her and lay the baby on her copper-brown breast. Marveled at how Talys scooted her small, squalling self toward L’Del’s right nipple and latched on. Driven by the instinct for milk.

*****

He liked to hold Talys in the mornings while L’Del slept. He would rise before dawn seeped up to the east and pad barefoot to his baby girl’s crib to watch her wake. Caress her cheek and the silky brown womb hair as she began to stir and bundle her into his arms as her almond-shaped eyes popped open. She gurgled happily on his neck as he carried her to the common room to change her diaper, kiss her belly, count her toes between the pads of his forefinger and thumb.

“Vehkuh, dakuh, rekuh, kehkuh, kaukuh…” He counted as she burbled, wriggled. Began again on the other sweet, flexible foot. 

He thought of his mother and what she must have felt when Vorik died. No katra to bring home. Almost four years. He thought of his brother several times a month, while watching himself shaving in the bathing room mirror or when the silver xirahnah birds flocked into the dune-cedar outside the northern window; Vorik had thought them stars as a child and tried to catch one to keep. 

Talys sucked on his jaw as he prepared her bottle from the milk L’Del had pumped and stored in stasis cylinders. He prepared the tea kettle with one hand on her round, diapered bottom and hummed lullabies and nursery songs that he didn’t remember the words to. He and Vorik had been children so very long ago, after all.

This morning he noticed two messages from Starfleet and several calls from his mother in the padd inbox. Frowned. All of them were marked AKALI, urgent. Decided to respond to family before Starfleet; whatever this was, they must be related issues. His thoughts turned for a moment to the boiling Dominion War and his office in the Starfleet Vulcan Annex. 

“Taurik!” T’Sara, still in a widow’s veil, cried when she saw her son on the viewscreen. He could see Bal standing behind their mother, her hands clapped over her mouth, her dark hair loose and fluttering in a sea breeze from the open window. “Taurik, my son, Vorik is alive! He is alive. The  _ Voyager _ was lost in the Badlands, not destroyed. What they found were pieces from the  _ ValJean _ . Heya, Taurik, tur sakai ha’tor, your brother  _ lives _ .”

Several moments passed before Taurik could move. His mouth had gone dry as sand, and he looked past his mother to Bal for affirmation. She nodded, clapped her hands to her belly and back again to her mouth. Came forward, for T’Sara was leaning on the desk with her fingers tented and eyes closed. Overwhelmed by emotion. 

The cause was sufficient.

“It is true, atsk-Sakai. The  _ Voyager _ was transported to the Delta Quadrant by some sort of schism. Starfleet hasn’t been forthcoming with us, but with you, they may.” Bal knelt in front of the terminal, her eyes wet with unshed tears. Of his two sisters, he and Bal were closest. “Do you need us to come to you?”

“No,” he said, his voice rough, tongue hard against his teeth. He moved through rote goodbyes and thumbed the Starfleet missives onto the screen:

**Ensign Taurik. URGENT Attachment USS Voyager NCC-74656 (personal)**

**Lieutenant (jg) Taurik. URGENT USS Voyager NCC-74656 Located (official)**

He opened the official file and read the stark facts of  _ Voyager’s _ loss—no, disappearance—and presence in the Delta Quadrant. Some sensitive information had been redacted, he was sure, but he zeroed in on the personal message. From Vorik. From his brother. 

It was, disappointingly, text only, but without a doubt in Vorik’s words:

_ V’Sakai—I am well, Taurik. My message must be brief. As Starfleet will relate, I am in Delta Quadrant. Voyage home expect completion in 68.3 solar years as of this date. If message successful there may be more. Please return a message to  _ Voyager _ if you can. Please contact Valen re: release from our marriage approved. Sending letter to Mother and Father. Sochya—D’Sakai Vorik. _

An hour later, Talys cooing on her mat and the sun high overhead, L’Del laid a hand on his shoulder, read and reread the message from Vorik. She had sensed his distress through their Bond and had taken their baby girl on her hip, breastfed her, gave her a new diaper. Taurik felt numb with the surge of hope, grief, anger, disbelief, belief, nausea, and headache that tugged at him from all directions. He laid his head on L’Del’s breast and breathed in the sweet scent of her. She smelled of milk, Talys, zinc oxide cream, lavender soap, vanilla lotion. Passed an arm about her waist, his other hand on her still-slack belly. How real she was. How beautiful.

*****

“There’s the proud papa,” Lieutenant Sam Lavelle grinned and held up his hand in the ta’al. Laughed outright when Taurik took one sedate hand out from behind his back and slapped the Human’s palm with a high five. “Good to have you back, T.”

“It is good to return, Sam.” Taurik readjusted his shoulder bag and strolled through the maze of spacedock corridors that led to the  _ Enterprise-E _ . He gave her quick, diagnostic glances as they walked to his assigned quarters. The damage done by the Borg queen had been extensive but not irreparable. LaForge, who had been in correspondence with him after their return, promised Taurik that there was yet work aplenty left to do. He could start by getting the subspace physics accelerator up to par. 

“When do you report?”

“07:00.”

“Time for a celebratory drink in the Stargazer Lounge?”

“I do have time.” Taurik stepped into his new quarters, Sam at his heels and rhapsodizing about Aisha Bilal, who had proposed marriage to Sam two months prior. He listened with a half-interested ear as he spread a red-orange blanket over the cool gray Starfleet-issue coverlet and placed several of his personal effects in the field-protected niche: his brother Vorik’s clumsy attempt at a slab-pottery tray, the mel’tak tooth he had found as a boy. Two holos of L’Del and Talys.

“That her now?” Sam stepped forward to peer at the little girl. One year old, her chubby fist pressed to her mouth and a circlet of rosemary and v’pret flowers atop her head. Fringe of dark hair and long black lashes. “She’s got your eyes, Taurik.”

“She has my brother’s eyes.” Taurik’s usual dry humor remained unchanged. 

“Careful, on Earth that’d be an invitation to a slew of infidelity jokes.” Sam grinned and nodded at the holo of L’Del, taken with her sitting cross-legged on a sandstone bench under a flowering succulent tree.

“It would be on Vulcan, as well. That said, it would be difficult to have an affair with a man two-thirds of a galaxy distant.” 

Sam was watching him carefully, concern blunting the edges of his smile. 

“I am well.” Taurik said, for he had found peace at last, knowing that he and his brother might one day be reunited. “Shall we depart for the Stargazer?”

The mood in the small lounge was tense; the Dominion War was on everyone’s tongues, and Taurik filled in gaps in several conversations about Vulcan’s part in the conflict. He had not only been Starfleet’s emissary in ShiKahr, a role which he had gladly fulfilled, but he had rotated out to the front lines of the conflict twice and suffered several phaser shots to back and thigh that left him clinging to life. Coming home to L’Del and Talys had been a balm on his mind, but he had been “champing at the bit” to return to his ship. Like seafaring peoples of old, once one had been accustomed to a traveler's life with only brief stops at port, one became addicted. 

“. . . the numbers of troops from all Vulcan provinces is sound. If the war continues as it does, there may not be need to call for the second wave of reserves.”

Bilal nodded, grave, and hid her hurt expression behind a fall of copper-brown hair. She had recently received word that her favorite cousin had died at the hands—literally, through torture—of the Jem’Hadar. She opined that the motherfuckers should burn, a sentiment that Taurik himself also privately held. He would keep to the philosophies of Surak of course, but there was a bitter, violent streak of blood that smouldered deep within his Vulcan heart. 

*****

Taurik dreamed. He dreamed of ShiKahr at dawn and L’Del naked in bed. Lying over him, her mouth against his neck and long fingers drawing him into an asha’torik meld. The fall of her hair now down to her bare shoulders, his fingers tangled in the waves. She smelled of salt, of blood, of v’lil petals. Intoxicating. 

The comm broke into his dream. Subspace personal message hail.

“Tev’tor svi’ po’sha,” he said in a sleep-clotted voice as his eyes drifted open. Inviting the terminal to die in a fire. Glanced at the chronometer. Thirty-seven minutes until he had to wake for duty anyway. 

He heaved himself into a semi-sitting position and caught his reflection in the mirror. Black hair winging up all over his head, morning stubble, drool on the corner of his mouth. And on his pillow. Many fellow Federation peoples viewed Vulcans in two ways: dignified, logically serene or else as insufferable, arrogant bitches. They rarely saw Vulcans as individual people. Nicking their cheeks with razors over the sink when the phase-cutter was on the fritz or spilling morning tea down the front of their uniform collars before slapping the drenched garment in the laundry and yanking another one from the closet in a fit of ill-humor. Taurik did all of these and stalked from his cabin on the way to main Engineering. He ignored the ping of a second subspace personal message as the door closed. He had a headache. He missed his baby. He missed his wife.

Main Engineering was yet quiet as gamma shift filtered off and alpha replaced it. He relieved Ensign Falla and thanked her for the update on their experiment in subspace processing nodes. Standing on the shoulders of the great Leah Brahms, as LaForge sometimes teased. Taurik would raise one eyebrow in a silent “really, Geordi?” expression and ask how many messages had come in from Brahms that month. Then ask LaForge to clarify how many of them were romantic in nature.

“Goodnight, Ensign Falla. You did well.” 

“Good morning, sir,” she said, her long amber tail flicking with pleasure at the praise. 

He was reviewing her data input when his comm badge hailed. “Lieutenant Taurik, report to my office please.”

LaForge, sounding unsettled. Taurik, still new to his promotion as Assistant Chief Engineer, wondered what now. Everything was functioning within parameters, the Dominion War over, recovery operations running with only minor hitches, no current emergencies within the sector. Pleasantly nominal, for a change.

He stopped short when Captain Picard turned around in front of Geordi’s desk. LaForge himself was sitting with his fingers steepled and his terminal displaying information in a muted scroll.

“Please sit down, Lieutenant,” Picard said, his voice warm. “This issue is personal in nature and not having anything to do with duty or performance.”

Taurik sat down, trying to read his commanders. LaForge seemed caught somewhere between quietly awestruck and giddy, Picard much more sedate but with the same unnamed wonder in his eyes. 

“It has been seven years since the disappearance of  _ Voyager _ , Lieutenant,” Picard said, pausing to see how this would affect his crewmember. 

Taurik kept his control in check, nodding only once to acknowledge this fact, but a sense of being unbalanced began to flutter within him.

“Lieutenant,  _ Voyager _ has returned to Alpha Quadrant. Once her crewmembers have been received and debriefed of the current situation within the Federation they will be free to return home. Your brother Vorik will be available to rendezvous at Starbase 36, where we will be putting in for resupply in fourteen days. No official transport has yet been arranged; Commander LaForge and I wanted to confirm with you before we set plans into place.” Picard’s expression was kind, his grey eyes paternal and voice soft. 

Taurik suddenly missed his father Tybik with a fierceness that made his throat ache. “Thank you sir,” he said after a few hard swallows. 

Watched Picard go to the replicator and order hot svah’tei and an Earl Grey for himself. LaForge demurred, gesturing to a mug already on his desk. The Captain had remembered Taurik’s favorite tea. He blinked, hard, hiding his shaken expression behind his first sip. Vorik,  _ home _ . 

_ Ha-kel, d’Sakai. _

*****

In retrospect, his headache that morning made sense; his discomfiture had been his and Vorik’s sibling-bond flickering to life again without the eclipse of space. It felt strange to peripherally sense his brother again after accepting him as dead or distant for so long. He had a marriage-bond in place now, and a parent’s telepathic connection to his daughter. There was less and less room for Vorik in Taurik’s mind. 

He now waited on a quiet deck at Starbase 36 and looked out at the Black Snake Nebula, his reflection cast in low-key against the void of cloud in a star-strewn sky. He was grateful for the low foot traffic and quiet throb of the starbase engines nearby. Like the sound of his mother’s heart. Like the sound of his brother’s heart, in the womb with him.  _ Heya _ , this was all so strange. 

Taurik didn’t turn when he heard a soft step on the observation deck or when there were suddenly two of him in the window. He remained still when Vorik’s bodily warmth glowed from his right side. He simply watched the stars and remembered how to breathe.

The faintest hint of Vorik’s greetings, amusement, and pain flowed through the sibling-bond, and a headache began to ping in his temples. 

Taurik finally turned to look at his brother. It was no longer like looking in a mirror. 

Vorik’s face was slightly rounder, his hair longer, the dark brown eyes sparking with nervousness and curiosity rather than familiarity. Though it had been seven-point-four years since they had seen one another and had certainly aged, his twin brother looked… younger. Taurik knew that he was more gaunt, the planes of his face sharper and eyes hard in the aftermath of the Dominion War, the loss of his ship, the death of his friends, Jaxa, Ben. Bilal and Sam’s firstborn son, Jackson, had likewise been lost to radiation poisoning when the space station Aisha had chosen as home came under fire.  _ Voyager _ had, in effect, suspended time for her crew when she was transported to the Delta Quadrant. Their griefs and joys had been different, unrelated to the continuity of the Federation.

“Vorik,” he said, almost feeling the sound out in his mouth. Put his hand out in an ambiguous gesture. “Nuh-mau waak.”

“Too long indeed, v’Sakai,” Vorik said, pressing his hand into Taurik’s in the Vulcan version of an embrace.

Taurik let his hand linger, his telepathic shields clamped down over his emotions. The feeling that Vorik was now unwelcome in his life surprised him, but he kept it in check; Vorik’s open expression did not change or falter.  _ I thought you dead, I mourned you. Then I thought you so far gone that we might never see one another again. Why are you returned? Why are you here? _

Uncharitable, unloving thoughts. Taurik accepted his self-loathing and resentment and put them aside for later meditation.

Both of them seemed reluctant to further the situation, so Taurik began to walk the observation deck, which rimmed the widest part of the station and was a designated quiet level, akin to a library. Vorik followed, drew abreast with his hands behind his back. Here they may only murmur and whisper, insurance against whatever stronger feelings might surface in the strangeness of reunion. Their strides were not even the same, anymore. Taurik’s was choppy, impatient. Vorik’s strolling, more graceful. 

Safe subjects: a gloss of recent Federation history, the fall of the Dominion, the fall of the Maquis. Vorik voiced that he was to stand as character witness for several of the Maquis who had been his crewmates for the past seven years, particularly B’Elanna Torres. The name meant nothing to Taurik, who only nodded in acknowledgement and waited his turn to talk of their father’s death, Bal’s baby son, L’Del, Talys beginning school with a new blue satchel. The loss of the  _ Enterprise-D,  _ the hard facts of the War, and deaths of ones whom he loved could come later. 

“You are yet unmarried?” Taurik stopped in puzzlement when Vorik mentioned that he was hesitant to contact the Clan mother to arrange a marriage for him. 

Vorik blushed to his ears even as he maintained his serene expression. “I am. My time in the Delta Quadrant… complicated matters.” This was a double entendre that allowed the spectre of pon farr to be raised without addressing it directly.

Taurik only blinked in silent invitation to continue. The deeply buried resentful part of him enjoyed seeing Vorik put on the spot.

His brother cleared his throat and glanced behind him, where a woman was walking a few dozen meters back, her figure small in the dim light. Her Starfleet Sciences uniform was clearly visible. Cascade of strawberry blonde hair. She wasn’t looking at them but out at the nebula, her footfalls lingering and slow to give the men their privacy. 

“Liv,” Vorik said, indicating her with a nod. “Lieutenant McMinn. She and I have been together for three-point-eight years. After I—” He made a vague motion to indicate that it was not she who had saved his life. From his reluctance to voice anything further it was clear that Vorik was yet unwilling to reveal how he had survived his Time with no mate. 

Taurik felt compassion begin to soften his resentment. Whatever Vorik had been through in this regard it had been traumatic, and his isolation during that vulnerable time was evident, even now. He began walking again and placed a hand on Vorik’s back as they moved along to the stern-side of the round station. His brother leaned into the brief touch and dropped his eyes to his boots for a moment. Their sibling-bond crackled with his relief and shame. 

“You wish to marry her,” Taurik said, switching to their Raalian dialect as two Bajoran women, flanking a male Vedek, walked past. 

“Yes, I do. We have discussed it; she wanted to meet our family before we settled anything. She actually knows our great-fore uncle S’tal. She was a student at the Kwil’inor Language Arts Institute during her junior year at the Academy. Small world,” Vorik almost smiled. “Would you come home with us?”

“I shall have to ask my captain and my commander; I am the current Assistant Chief Engineer of the  _ Enterprise-E  _ and lack the freedom of movement that I once had.” Taurik knew that Picard and LaForge would say yes, but it was disrespectful to assume and promise without their word. He pushed against his own darkness to admit that he did want to go home to Vulcan with his brother, in part to see L’Del and his little girl.

“Of course,” Vorik bowed and glanced back at the Lieutenant again. “We await you.”

*****

Deep meditation proved useful in reconciling Vorik’s presence within his life after feelings of finality and absence. Taurik found he was able to meet his brother on the shuttle home with emotions balanced and tongue kept in check. Vorik seemed to be past the first, awkward blush of his youth and was quieter, more considerate and withdrawn than he had been. He spent most of his time on the shuttle to Vulcan with Liv, who was like Taurik in temperament and preference. Liked svah’tei, the novels of T’Pri, and raising orchids. Disliked the feeling of her uniform collar close about her neck and piano solos. She had a quick wit with those whom she knew well but kept mostly quiet with a listener’s ear.

This suited Taurik well, who found the silence around the breakfast and dinner tables of the companionable sort. He worked with Liv on her Raalian accent, for Vorik’s had diminished without voyages home. Liv wanted to learn their dialect, less commonly heard in Starfleet than the ShiKahr-standard “Vulcan” language. Her slight Edinburgh burr and rounded vowels lent itself to certain words, such as “rirunsu.”

Liv’s similarity to Taurik was insight to his brother’s psychology during his time in the Delta Quadrant; he found his heart softening further, though his relationship with Vorik was irrevocably changed.

“I’ll leave you two gentlemen in order to pack. We’ll be home at 08:20 tomorrow.” Liv rose from the table on the observation deck and caressed Vorik’s paired fingers in a sensual form of ozh’esta. Her hair was loose and caught the warm-tinted light common to Vulcan starships as she turned away. 

Vorik watched after her, his expression fond. Taurik recognized the look from his own face when he watched L’Del without her knowing; in this, at least, they were similar.

“Do you think that the Clan will accept this marriage?” Vorik asked, addressing his tea mug as if fearing his brother’s answer.

“I do not give a damn what the Clan thinks,” Taurik said, staring out the window at stars zipping by at a slow warp three. This was true. He loved his family but had lost his patience for pious deference. “If your marriage will satisfy both you and Liv then the Clan must accept it. Marriages between Humans and Vulcans are common enough now.”

Vorik kept his expression neutral but his unease came across their bond. He breathed deep in an approximation of a sigh.

Their misalignment weighed heavily on both of their hearts, Taurik could see. He wished things were different, that  _ Voyager _ had never been lost, that the wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant had never been found, that his father was alive, Sam and Bilal did not know sorrow, that Ben and Jaxa were still alive and the  _ Enterprise-D _ still flew among the stars on silver wings. He wished that the last seven years could fall away and be rewritten, that his life and the lives of those whom he loved always had a happy ending. 

He knew wishful thinking when he saw it. Knew that its uses were few.

“My heart is happy that you found love, Vorik,” Taurik found himself saying the words before he realized he was going to speak them. He and Vorik blinked at one another in surprise before he blew air from his lips and pressed on. “You are fortunate that you found one so suited for you while so far from home. I am proud of you, for your tenacity and your loyalty to your people aboard  _ Voyager _ . I am glad that you are returned home.”

Bold words, for a Vulcan, who was supposed to be master of his emotions. Subversive, even.

Vorik’s mouth curved in a smile of delight at the break of tradition. Another place where they overlapped. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hurrah! A novella done. 
> 
> Word of God: L'Del looks like the actress Irene Bedard circa 1996. Her character and baby Talys are borrowed from the licensed Trek novels and videogames. All crew names for USS Voyager are canon according to Memory Alpha and most Vulcan words are from the Vulcan Language Dictionary. 
> 
> Thank you for reading. :)


End file.
